


i've been born for some time (and i've got you in my mind)

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, a short analysis that i might... update in the future..., psychosexual quagmires: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sakaguchi likes Rakta. It's as simple as that.





	i've been born for some time (and i've got you in my mind)

And in whichever side he may take, The World Eater is the only master of himself. To expect utter loyalty from him is like expecting an animal to have some sort of literacy. But even so, if he had to belong to anyone, it would be to Rakta – by blood oath or an unspoken binding magic, whether or not they’d meant to swear on it, already having the taste of each-other’s blood seared into their memories.

-

Rakta ran his finger down the bridge of Sakaguchi’s hands, down to the bumpy skin by his left jaw, right to the stitches. He could feel dried blood on them, that usually meant Sakaguchi either just ate or he just came back from a mission. Either way, he dug his nails gently onto them, just enough to incite a reaction but not to draw any blood. It was always like this too, in the way they interact.

What he got was a push and Sakaguchi leaning so close that he could feel his breath. He released his grip, although his hands stayed just like that on Sakaguchi. Not pulling or pushing, keeping.

(Sometimes Rakta is the only thing suturing Sakaguchi together on the worst of days.)

He pressed their foreheads close, the unruly hair on Rakta’s forehead flat against Sakaguchi’s forehead. If anyone dared look close enough, you could easily tell how they work from how they held each-other in their hands.

Rakta held Sakaguchi like a tool. With a vice grip, his hands gliding aimlessly but never without purpose. As if checking its’ remaining functionality, like looking for damage on a weapon you owned. His hands stayed where it was the most visible. It’s akin to posturing, like getting your dirty hand all over a lost treasure that doesn’t deserve to be in your possession – it’s all possessiveness. Everything has a meaning, but he’d only tell you that he is overly fond of how Sakaguchi is shaped if you had asked.

Sakaguchi held Rakta like a lover. With a gentle caress, his hands always stayed on Rakta’s hips. But Sakaguchi is notorious for all his lies and pretense, with presenting things like it was this instead of that. His words aren’t the only thing cryptic, almost all of his actions are. Closer inspection would tell you that even though his hands never stray, he’d always have a nose pressed to Rakta – smelling for something. For _betrayal_, most likely. For any sign of escape.

They don’t talk a lot in public, most conversations exchanged in a quiet glance off of each-other’s eyes. It’s like they’ve been doing this, doing _them_, for centuries. Like in every reincarnation of their miserable lives, they would be entangled together one way or another. Each of them their own brand of unsettling, how they set people off with their uneasiness. They shouldn’t be suited for each-other, this is one of those stories you can _tell_ would just end with an explosion.

They hit it off.

-

Their first point of intimacy was odd, as all things are with them. Unsettling, as they are. Biting down on someone’s neck and barely missing the artery, which was the result of a hasty (and honestly lazy) decision-making in Sakaguchi’s part, is an unlikely scenario that you’d associate with the word ‘intimate’ but it was. Rakta bit into him and everything slotted in place together with a quiet, resounding _click_ in Sakaguchi’s brain.

_Oh_, Sakaguchi thought to himself, _I wasn’t going stupid. I just liked him._

And it’s so… _childlike_. A creature of urban legends, The World Eater, befuddled and tripping over human feelings. Not even the deities had a hand in reincarnation, for the word of the ladies in charge of keeping lives in cycle – his _true_ owners, by legal contract – was absolute. Higher beings are not as powerful as all their talk. They do not control everything.

Humans do.

The World Eater is a creature of urban legends, born and manifested out of the humans’ ideals of what a _World Eater_ should be. The deities only bind his existence stronger to the world, so that he would be tied to the world – so that he would come to serve it as they would. Therefore, it was their fault to perceive him as a being capable of feelings, capable to be born as human.

Truth be told, humans have way more control over the deities than any other being in the planet. It’s just that they stopped because of this whole _monotheism_ bullshit. When a creature you made, whether it is on purpose or not, is released from the shackles you put them in – they will become sentient. They will learn how to fend for themselves and evolve. Humans are so focused on wishing to become Gods that they forgot they could create them.

Deities are nothing without humans, deities _depend_ on them.

And so, the relationship of him between Rakta is mirrored through history. Sakaguchi is a deity in a human body, Rakta is devastatingly human through and through. It is foretold that Sakaguchi would _need _Rakta, it’s reasonable to assume that Sakaguchi would come to love Rakta.

So, when Rakta released Sakaguchi, he was not at all surprised to wish that Rakta would never let go. _Feed from me forever, keep your fangs latched onto me, as you should. _For a deity’s purpose is to serve, as mankind serves them.

“How come is your blood so sweet?” Rakta asked, blood still dribbling down his fangs. Sakaguchi’s eyes hypnotically followed the swipe of Rakta’s tongue over them, before he tore them off to look at Rakta right in the eyes.

“That’s just you buttering me up.” The knife in Sakaguchi’s hand felt heavy, it’s a regular knife but it was what slit the side of his neck – that eventually led to his revelation. He tossed the ceremonial knife away, in a fruitless effort to forget his whole epiphany, to throw away that particular part from his repertoire. “Maybe you accidentally casted a spell on yourself so that it tasted sweet.”

Rakta hummed a _maybe_ before yanking Sakaguchi’s head to the side, tongue lapping over the gash on his neck before it eventually stitched itself back up. Like trying to get the last sip of a juice you really liked. It was horribly intimate in his head, but they’re not even close. Maybe these past few years had been too lonely.

“No such spell exists,” Rakta said, “you are just _sweet_, Sakaguchi.”

-

“Then put me to rest, and wake me up whenever you liked.”

“If it was up to me, you would never wake. You would just sleep until the ends of time.”

-

Rakta _stares_ in a way that makes people assume he has sight.

This was one thing Sakaguchi noticed, among other creepy shit Rakta does. People that knew both of them would often comment on how Sakaguchi is much more amicable with Rakta. They mean no harm, but they’re right. He is much politer, much more pliant when Rakta is around.

That is because he is _afraid_ of Rakta, to an extent.

“You’re nice to me.” Rakta said, one day. While being wrapped in Sakaguchi’s arms, legs tangling together like two ropes. The sheets around them are rumpled, and Sakaguchi thought that Rakta was absolutely adorable when he’s on the edges of sleep. “Imagine if you’re this nice to other people.”

He really cannot imagine. He’d rather not. Not if Sakaguchi’s problems came from the stupidity of other people, he genuinely thinks all of his problems would be solved if all people just stopped being stupid. He wouldn’t need kind remarks for people that understands him in a way or those who amount anything to him. All his life he’d been moving under the prospect of self-preservation, it’s hard to beat that kind of mentality out of him and start being _nice _for the purpose of… just being nice.

Sakaguchi was still horribly human, sympathy is as devastating as animosity is for him.

“They don’t interest me.”

Rakta laughed, short and savory. The sound thick with exhaustion and comfort, reverberating deep into Sakaguchi’s chest; reached more cavities than he thought it could, settled into his veins like a potent tranquilizer. He wondered what it’d take to keep that. “Do I interest you?”

Sakaguchi scoffed. Not only was Rakta interesting, he _wants_ to know more. Curiosity was something that rarely passes him, but once it does: he obsesses over it. Chased them until they spat out everything he wanted to know. “Maybe,” he said, “maybe.”

Rakta reached for his cheek, and brushed them with his knuckles in a mockery of a punch or a caress. Sakaguchi closed his eyes and let Rakta’s fingertips glide itself against the scars on his jaw, and as he was shutting his eyes – he felt the phantom press of a kiss against his temple.

By the time he opened his eyes again, he collected his belongings with the thought that he couldn’t stay. Even if he said that he would stay, even if he said that he’d be there when Rakta wakes up. It would just be a lie in a thousand others. He shouldn’t stay until he got his own head sorted out.

All this thinking got him hungry.

-

This was a time of war.

He knew that, he knew perfectly well. His days were busy, piled up with tasks and things that needed immediate attention. Sakaguchi was understandably busy, but he worked hard – he omits all thoughts about Rakta for a few days. He came back with the Russian winter still breathing down his neck and Egypt’s sand down his throat. Bringing nothing but himself and a souvenir that didn’t worth more than a few pennies, Sakaguchi rings the buzzer to Rakta’s place. His head was pounding, the wound in his side is pulsing with waves of pain but he stood upright.

Rakta opened the door for him, grabbing his wrist in a firm grip. They stood like that for a while, Sakaguchi still in his work clothes and Rakta wearing a loose sweatshirt – grabbing onto Sakaguchi as if asking for permission. The bustle of nightlife miles away from them brought a dreamlike state, the streetlamp shedding only the necessary light for Sakaguchi to properly made out the lines of Rakta’s face. There they stood, by the doorway, after days without contact.

Russia was desolate, cold, and miserable. It was gritting his teeth through the cold and eating the snowstorm until he was suffering from frostbites everyday – felt like his insides froze, ice drifting through his veins and crystalizing the blood. His lips were cracked, as if he didn’t have enough scars already; they healed quick but it was still painful. The snow gets everywhere, pinpricks of ice-cold needles against his face. There really was no cold that could be on par with being in the ass-end of Russia, it seeps into places you thought could never reach. His heart was beating so slow.

Egypt was desolate, hot, and refreshing. He liked it better than Russia, at least the heatwaves constantly filled his stomach with warmth. The sand was annoying, but it was thousands of times better than the snow.

Both are barren wastelands, but the reason why Sakaguchi never liked the cold was because it felt incredibly lonely.

And as he stood, with Rakta’s hand on his wrist, he had never felt more alone. The Russian winter breathed down his neck like a particularly bad spirit, the ones that got attached easily and ate away at your energy. He felt alienated, standing on the upside-down welcome mat. Why was he here again? Why did he come back here, instead of his own apartment? Was the small one-bedroom house suddenly felt too big for him or was it the yearning of another human body against him? Or was it because he unconsciously thought of this as home, as fucked as it was, as a place to come back to when everything got a little too much? Even if Rakta thought of him as nothing but a means to an end, it sure as hell the guy acted like he mattered.

“Hi,” Sakaguchi said, and that was all the permission Rakta took before he pulled Sakaguchi inside. For a man so wiry and bony, Rakta has quite the strength – maybe it was the longing. Longing always made people different. Either changed them for the better or for worse, but it was always neither.

The door slammed shut behind them, and the house is dark. It was clear that Rakta had no need for lights, all those lamps were pre-installed and just for decoration. But he usually had one or two on, to indicate that there’s someone home – so the reason they were out must be because Rakta had went to bed. His sweatshirt felt impossibly soft underneath Sakaguchi’s hands as he was pulled into a hug by Rakta, and Sakaguchi found out just how it was a waste of sentimentality when Rakta sunk his teeth to Sakaguchi’s neck.

He expected nothing more, but the well of something impossibly gentle and cotton-like in his chest as Rakta pulled him close was wasted. He knew all of this would come down to the simple act of feeding, sustenance, and he tried to find comfort in that. To find comfort in the concept of _sustenance_. When he found out that it didn’t bring anything but a slithering sense of hopelessness, he lowered his head and clung to Rakta. It was kind of sad, how Sakaguchi’s comfort came in the form of one person. It was his own fault that he was unlikeable, all the physical contacts he’s had for the past years are either laced with ill-intention or wasn’t meant for comfort.

As Rakta unlatched his teeth off of Sakaguchi’s neck, he felt the warm presence of Rakta’s tongue lapping all the blood dribbling down as he willed the cut to close. It almost took all of him, and it was the reason he didn’t refuse when Rakta pulled at his hands. The moonlight guided Sakaguchi’s steps, and Rakta guided their steps to the bedroom. “Let’s sleep,” he had said, hands shedding Sakaguchi’s coat to the floor in the hallway, “put us to rest.”

Even with exhaustion draping over him like a wet blanket, Sakaguchi’s mind wandered even as Rakta helped him shed the rest of his clothes. He was given a simple shirt, it was too loose on him and he wondered what Rakta would look like in it. Delectable, probably. Rakta was one of the things in this world that Sakaguchi would be reluctant to eat, he was pretty after all. Devastatingly so.

Sakaguchi was tired, and his whims were strong enough to make him take hold of Rakta’s wrists and pinned it to the mattress below. His hair fell over his face, tickled his nose, as he looked down at Rakta’s surprised face. It was dark, not enough to hide Rakta’s whole features but dark enough to hide the rest. It doesn’t hide the smooth skin exposed to the chill as Rakta’s sweatshirt hiked up, doesn’t hide the dip of his v-line. Sakaguchi wondered if the porcelain-toned skin is as soft as it looks, he wondered if he pressed to hard it would send hairline fractures all the way up to Rakta’s neck.

Rakta was one of the people who wouldn’t be involved in battle if they could help it. His skin is free from scars, the ugliness of war left him untainted physically and Sakaguchi would make sure of that. He wasn’t born smart and as clever as Rakta, wasn’t born with that kind of genius and their skins kept scores of that – kept tally marks of Rakta’s rare involvement in a battlefield.

This was a time of war, and Sakaguchi was just desperate enough for a connection that _meant_ something. He didn’t stop to think about the unhealthiness that bred, and how it seeped into their relationship. Desperation was a good look on him, and many wouldn’t disagree.

Sakaguchi lowered himself, and settled his face down to the slope of Rakta’s shoulder. The small contact between his nose and Rakta’s skin enough to send small shockwaves down his spine. He thought to himself that none of these would matter. They were in a war. For _greater cause _and the sickening superficial nobility of _sacrifice_ for something greater than themselves, all those who dreamed big and dreamed of war. None of those meant anything. He couldn’t afford to think about something bigger than himself. Not when all he wanted was to just exist, right here, with Rakta.

Sakaguchi had to tell him, he had to. If he were to die, the least he could do is be alright with it.

It was a waste of sentimentality when all Rakta wanted for him was nothing of the sorts. It was a waste of sentimentality, but who else was he going to waste it for if not Rakta?

This is how a _World Eater_ is so unbearably human, and Rakta is so… symbolic for a human.

He held himself in a different posture, confident and unafraid as if the world isn’t hand-tailored for those with sight. If anything, he thinks Rakta is _blessed_ to be without a sight in this world. It has become so ugly.

He would kill just to see cracks on Rakta’s composure, and he already killed easily enough. Wanted Rakta to bare everything into him, and even if this is just late-night wishful thinking further enabled by a cocktail mixture of exhaustion and desire and sentimentality and _loneliness_. For once, Sakaguchi felt like a true _World Eater_ around Rakta. It wasn’t much of a hunger, it was worse. He was ravenous.

He had to tell him, lest he dies with regrets and comes back hundreds of years later to a rotting Earth.

“What’s wrong?” Rakta asked, and Sakaguchi tilted his head up. He was staring at Sakaguchi unblinkingly with a benevolent yet curious gaze. Straight at Sakaguchi’s eyes. It was like moments before a soft pin would enter a butterfly’s abdomen, like you were about to get your nerves skewered in order to present everything in great detail. “Were you going to do something?”

It’s horrible how Rakta managed to made it sound like it was both an accusation and an invitation, he’s so unnervingly casual and oddly intimate. It made Sakaguchi feel helpless. How Rakta ate his heart up so fast, how he occupied the inside of his mind faster than black mold.

Sakaguchi parted his lips, and tumbled down to sleep.

-

When anyone has encountered both Sakaguchi and Rakta at the same time, they will all tell you the same thing. It feels uneasy, being around them. With Sakaguchi’s dead cat eyes staring down at you unblinkingly and how he is constantly still, like the wind actively avoids his path. With Rakta’s odd presence, how he’s all pure, unadulterated and quiet charm that puts you off just this side of unsettling. Danger favors them, violence is imminent.

The only color that suit them other than white and black would be red.

Sitting on the cold floor of the bathroom, Rakta leaned against the bathtub as he drank from the severed arm of man. Head tilted up, leaving his neck exposed. He drained the last of the blood, the cords of his throat rippled against the collar of his turtleneck. Sakaguchi stood near the sink, suturing a wound close with a needle and medical thread. He’s been healing slowly as of late, he always heals slower when it’s wintertime. It was why he hated Russia so bad, it’s wintertime everyday there.

Rakta tossed the arm away, completely pale. He let his head slumped, and Sakaguchi knows it’s one of his bad days. The bathroom is messy, the bathtub is chock full of corpses that are piled on top of each-other. They were not the type of person that would bother with a proper burial, it was a waste of time. They were livestock, simple as that.

The glimmer from the pools of wasted blood spinned his head in a daze, he was dirty from all the slaughter. The room was dirty from floor to ceiling, the pungent scent of blood dampens down all his other senses. The only thing that wasn’t dirty in this room is Rakta, clean and pure and holy as the shitty ceiling light casts down a halo on his head. He looks demonically angelic, a contradiction in Sakaguchi’s eyes and a mystery in others.

Rakta becks for him to come closer with a flick of his wrist, Sakaguchi comes closer with feigned stability when in reality, the ground felt like it was putty beneath his feet. He slicked his hair back as he crouched down in-between Rakta’s spread legs, long and lean, the blind man barely reacted when he put his hand on top of one thigh. Rakta eyes him for a moment, and Sakaguchi eyes him right back.

It was rational for Sakaguchi to linger. It was animal instinct. But Rakta spread his arms and Sakaguchi willingly fell in, nothing to lose – not when all the things in the world always felt so momentary, when Rakta felt like a steady presence when their foreheads touched. Like in their veins, they had the same blood. Sakaguchi never felt closer, but as all things in this world: it was fleeting. It was more than enough, Sakaguchi was just greedy.

Rakta drank from him, again. Filling his hunger to the brink of its lid with Sakaguchi, and he wished Rakta would let him fill another kind of hunger. He wished Rakta would fill his hunger, but he can’t ask that of Rakta – that was too much. Sakaguchi held him in a pedestal and would rather die than admit it, even to himself. So he submits, takes whatever Rakta would give him and even if certain gestures have a whole different meaning, Sakaguchi will pretend it was what he wanted. Shape it to his liking, as long as he kept himself.

So he submits, nothing to lose. And this is the wickedness of Rakta, you come to him knowing you have nothing left to lose – then he _gave_ you something to lose so you’d never be able to leave. The only way to leave was to never enter.

Sakaguchi is just glad he has something to lose. In some ways he was scared too.

-

Sakaguchi loses parts of himself as fast as he recovers them. They don’t all come back in the right places, but he hides it well. Rakta noticed, he always did, and acts as the gold that mends all of Sakaguchi’s scattered mind in the worst of days. He started to wonder when it stopped being something that’s convenient to something of a necessity.

This type of codependency is… exhausting, almost. When you’re away from each-other for long periods of time without any relief, what with Sakaguchi always traveling away from Japan and with Rakta needing his job to stay in place more often than not. It doesn’t help that they’re on the opposing side, but he doesn’t doubt that even if they were ever on the same side – it wouldn’t be any different. If a little more convenient.

Rakta slept on beside him, and Sakaguchi wondered from time and time again how someone so clearly festering in black magic be this ethereal. They’re in Sakaguchi’s place this time, one of the rare times where Rakta told him that he’d like to see the artifacts in Sakaguchi’s house. All of them magical, none of them remotely safe. Except for that one painting of a sailboat in the ocean, the waves sometimes splashing over outside the painting when Sakaguchi sneezed a little too loud.

Some of his artifacts Rakta could see. That meant it’s alive, or at least had blood.

Sakaguchi followed the rise and fall of Rakta’s chest as the book he was reading lay abandoned on the coffee table, eyes trailing up to his adam’s apple, to the tip of his nose. He rose from his seat, treading silently towards where Rakta was sleeping. He stood over Rakta for a while, a mocking imagery of a grim reaper or a guardian angel. The only reason Sakaguchi leaned over and pressed his lips softly to Rakta’s forehead in a comforting gesture is that he might regret it if he never did it once in his life. So that he wouldn’t be kept awake at night haunted by the thought of how he’d never done it. It would be the kind of thing that ate him up like he would eat the world one day.

Rakta had kissed the corner of his lips, his neck, his jaws, the scars on each sides of his face and all Sakaguchi ever gave him was a chaste one on his forehead. It wasn’t like he lacked the courage, Sakaguchi isn’t all talk about being fearless, it was just he lacked… reason. Rakta’s touches always had reason, even if Sakaguchi himself didn’t know, Rakta would know his own reasons. It would provide comfort for himself. Sakaguchi touched Rakta just for touching’s sake, no justification. He wondered if this would keep him awake at night instead. He could never win when it came to Rakta.

The way Rakta’s nose scrunched up right after that soothes a crease in his chest, among thousands of other. So he pulled up the blanket higher, and settled on the other side of the bed with exactly 5 centimeters apart from the young man. He reached out and brushed the tips of his fingers to Rakta’s back, and fell asleep like that. Reaching out.

He was at peace with this. Closure was a thing of luxury, he’d be content with just this.

-

Smelling like the river and the forest, Rakta kissed him when the honey-glazed lemon color of dawn enveloped them in a warm embrace.

This was a time of war, and Sakaguchi would be alright to die after this happened.

Not that Rakta would let him.

**Author's Note:**

> aka sakaguchi ngebatin gegara rakta anjir


End file.
